UPDATE: She's doing well!

She's looking good!

After a good root rinse, she was moved to a pot with a much healthier pH balance, but she's been in a static state of shock for at least a month until today. Her terminal bud is finally growing again! She even has a healthy side bud.  




Fortunately muriatic acid does not accumulate in the food chain and the only thing toxic about it is the extremely low pH level.

Meanwhile, her three sisters are producing fruit and the first papaya should be ready to pick any day now.

  

Not much in the way of leaves yet but the stalk/trunk looks nice and thick. Hope you get some great papayas. I don't recall if you've said that you've grown papayas before, but if eaten almost immediately, they're my favorite fruit ... so aromatic they can almost snap at your nose too much, like an overdone perfume ... but an incredibly good one, not abrasive ... and that perfume disappears within less than half an hour, usually, even when refrigerated immediately on picking. I like them as full-flavored as possible, but just a little cool, so I throw them in the freezer or fridge practically at a running pace and then start praying that most of the perfume will still be there in 10 or 15 minutes or so ...

The Mexican papayas I had weren't nearly as good as the ones we grew in Hawaii and Guam, though. Much bigger, and kinda smelly in a bad way. Some people really take offense to the smell of Mexican papayas. Different beast entirely from the tropical ones.

Good luck! Wish I could grow them here ...

That is wonderful!!!   

Marc Iverson wrote:Not much in the way of leaves yet but the stalk/trunk looks nice and thick.  Hope you get some great papayas.  

   
Yes, but those small leaves are the only ones that survived, and they were smaller without any sign of growth since Jan. 29th. That is until yesterday. Just seeing that the leaves are finally growing is a great sign!   

I was concerned a week or two ago when it looked like the leaves were fading in color.